MY FIRST NET ZERO ENERGY DAY!

In red shows my net zero day

As you can tell from my ALL-CAPS title, I'm a little excited by this.  I've had my solar panels for over a year now and I've never come close...although I really didn't expect it.  So why now?  Well, my wife and I were away in Charleston attending the Cooper River Bridge Run.  The thermostats were in vacation mode, so the house wasn't being heated so that helps.  And without water usage, the water heater didn't need to operate (maybe a little, probably).  So really, the only operating were my normal household loads (HTPC, fridge, freezer, kegerator, clocks, etc).  And apparently it was a nice sunny day (as seen in the pic below) where we got a great amount of solar generation.

Hourly power consumption for the Net zero day.  

Looking at my TED5000 data, my empty house consumed 9.9 kWh, while the solar panels generated 10.6 kWh.  Yes, this doesn't add up t the -0.6 kWh shown, but I'm guessing there's some rounding going on that we can't see unless I download the full data (which should be in watts, not kW).

Still...I'll take a Net Zero Energy Day...well, TECHNICALLY a Net POSITIVE Energy day...

UPDATE: Water Heater Woes Continued...

Temperature in the Crawl Space from last night: next to the Geospring and the crawl space door (Bottom Value=56.1F)

Continuing on from my current discussion, so I'm been watching the Geospring to see if Friday's fix of the control board has worked.  Well, my skepticism has been right.  This AM, I checked the TED5000 and it appears the Geospring is still not operating correctly.  And I know its got nothing to do with the temperature in the crawl space because that's fine...and this AM it was  a nice 47F outside while the crawl space was at least 56F.  The graphs below show the AM routine with showers and such.  You can easily see the electric elements on the water heater turning on (a healthy ~5kW) 3 times over this morning for showers.  The 3rd time is when my wife cleaned the dishes in the sink.

Morning Energy Consumption.  The first big jump and 10-min plateau is the water heater running for my wife's shower.  The second is my my shower (with the 'thorn' on top for my wife's  hair dryer).  The third...well, I'm not sure.  Laundry?

Below is a closeup of the 3rd jump.  What I find a little odd is the "noise" on the graph (the jumping up/down).  That's kind of unusual.  Just look at the data before and notice that the data is very smooth.  And after is a little "rough" also.  Thinking about this...that's got to be the clothes washer.  I'm guessing it must be that little bit of "juice" to keep the drum moving.  Neat, huh?

Closeup of the 3rd turn on of the water heater electric elements.  

Since I can't zoom or change the scale on these graphs, I downloaded the raw data from TED and opened it up in Excel to graph.  The results are below so you can easily see the "noise" from the clothes washer.

Excel Plot of the clothes washer "Noise"  Lots of ups and downs.  

Anyhow, regardless of what the clothes washer is doing, I'm still a little peeved about my water heater still not operating correctly.  It should be running the heat pump exclusively.

Reminder of the weather station next to the water heater with the water heater set to "Heat Pump Only"

Well, I guess I'll get the *joy* of calling GE again and hopefully this time I won't get the rude person who's trying to tell me I'm wrong and I don't understand how the water heater works...along with the threat that I'll have to pay for the service "when they find there's nothing wrong".   If I'm wrong, I'll gladly blog about it and apologize.  Until that happens...which it hasn't to date...

Water Heater Woes Continues...

OK...so recall a little while ago (cue the Scooby-Doo music and squiggly lines), I was having some issues with my GE Geospring Heat Pump Water Heater.  Well on Friday last week, the back-ordered control board finally arrive and week later (yesterday), the GE repair guys showed up and installed it.  As a fun note, the water heater was showing the dreaded "FC/F14" (failed compressor) error when I opened up the crawl space before the guys arrived.

Well, go figure, today I'm getting ready to feed the dog while my wife was showering and I noticed on the energy monitor that the energy usage was sky-high.  Well, what the heck!  I checked and the downstairs heat was on...OK...that's about 2.5 kW (Stage 2).  The upstairs heat was not on.  And then while looking around I heard her hair dryer come on...that's about 1.5kW.  So I checked TED and this is what I saw the following:

Morning Power Usage.  The ~2.5kW is the heat.  The final blip is a hair dryer.  The big jump is the water heater.

 Huh...there' a huge roughly 5kW jump...so the electric element is on the water heater again!  WTH?!?  Didn't those guys fix that yesterday?!?

Well, at this point I can't do any more investigation because I needed to cook breakfast for the family. In case you're wondering, it was waffles.  And yes, they were awesome.

So after cooking and cleaning up I checked on the water heater.  While doing dishes, I did run over to the corner of the house and listen and I could hear the heat pump working.  Well that's good!

After I had finished cleaning, everything I checked the power monitor and *$%&$%, the electric heating element was on again!  Well, now I was free to check on everything.  Below is my series of pictures where I made sure everything was off.  There was no heat on, upstairs or downstairs.  The dryer wasn't running.  We weren't cooking or baking.  And nothing else was running (fridge, freezer, kegerator).  I also checked the temperature in the crawl space...and it was a healthy 59F.

TED5000 showing my energy usage

Temperatures.  Upper is Indoor.  Lower is Crawl Space.  Ignore the time, I've never set it.

Downstairs heat is not running.

Upstairs heat is not running either

Geospring showing it in Heat Pump Only Mode.

While down in the crawl space checking the water heater and taking the above picture you could hear the a click which I'm guessing was the electric elements turning off.  I verified it with the below pictures...

Yup, all heating (air and water) is off. 

Below is the TED screenshot.  You can see the event described earlier (~6:30am) with the hair dryer peak.  And then there's cooking breakfast followed by doing the dishes.  Then everything turns off while we eat followed by the final water heater peak when I was doing this investigation.

TED5000 energy monitor

So I'm going to try an experiment.  I relocated my weather monitor right next to the Geospring.  Not to say it was much further away...maybe 10-15-ft, but now it's only about 1-ft away.  And it is also right next to the crawl space door.  This should be the coldest it should ever read, if for some reason, air is getting through the insulated and weatherstripped door.  It happens, so I'm trying to give it the benefit of the doubt although one would think that if it were significant enough, I'd see huge fluctuation in the temperature in my entire crawl space...which I do not see.

Geospring with the weather (temp/humidity) monitor now located beside the water heater.  The door is about 3-ft away.

Looking at the monitor now, it is showing a lower temperature...53F instead of 59F.  Then again, I did just have the crawl space door open while I went inside to grab the weather station, then move it over and position it (it didn't want to stand up so I had to put it on its side), and then take the picture.  And even with that, it's still nearly 8F higher than the minimum temp.  So I'm overly surprised that the temperature it lower. 

Either way, I'm going leave this here for a while to see if the temperature drops to below the 45F threshold where it overrides the heat pump and goes to electric.  I *highly* doubt this is the case, but I can at least rule it out.  I'll keep y'all posted.  Otherwise, I guess I'll have to call GE repair again to get them over to figure out why this thing keeps running the electric heat. 

Water Heater Woes

Go figure, as soon as it gets cold, then issues arise.  Recall that i have one of those fancy GE Geospring water heaters that use a low energy heat pump to heat my hot water.  To date, it's worked nearly flawlessly with the only hiccup being a Thanksgiving when I had so much family in the house, that my water heater couldn't keep up with demand in the "heat pump only" mode that I have my unit set on.  So I just changed the mode to be "hybrid" to allow the electric elements to kick-on and produce the extra hot water necessary for ~6 showers in the morning.  

My GE Geospring water heater in my crawl space

Well, all was great until just after Thanksgiving when I noticed I had a lot of energy usage.  Trying to troubleshoot led me down to the crawl space where I found a "FC" error code on the GeoSpring.  Thanks to the "Google", I found this this meant "Failed Compressor" and (apparently) it's not an unusual occurance via comments and blogs.  I went ahead and called GE customer service and scheduled an appointment for after the Holidays (I was traveling).  They mailed the parts to me ahead of time which included a bunch of new parts.  

On Monday, the guys arrived and they plugged in their laptop (when can I get one of those appliance communication modules?!?) and ran a test to verify that "Yup, the compressor is broken".  So they ripped out the old one and put in the new one while leaving me to scramble for PVC parts to reattached the drain piping.

Old Evaporator.  There's a surprising amount of rust here for something that isn't even 2 years old!

Pic i used to go to Lowe's where I picked up a union and a nipple to reattached the drain piping

So after they put everything back together, it appeared that everything was working.  The fan was running which indicated that the compressor was running producing hot water. 

Well, funny thing, the next day I was getting ready to feed the dog when I glanced over at the energy monitor and saw it using 6 kW.  Wow...that's a lot!  So I searched around the house.  Drying not running; upstairs heat off; downstairs heat off; Oven off...huh.  My wife was making some stuff in the toaster oven, but that's rinky-dink...only 1.5kW.  So I set off to the crawl space to check on the water heater.  Suspicious, I flipped the breaker and guess what?  The electric demand instantly dropped...bullseye!   Below is a screenshot of the power usage via the TED5000 and my phone.

Real-Time Energy Usage showing the water heater on...then off at the sudden drop.  And the pick-up when I flipped the breaker back on.

Once I verified, I flipped the breaker again and you can see the water heater heat pump turn on as it goes through its start-up cycle.  Huh...so why was the electric running when I had the unit set to "heat pump only"?  No idea.  So I just assumed it was a minor blip...I made sure the temp was set right and it was still on "heat pump only", then closed up the crawl space and went on my merry way.

Well, the next morning, my wife wakes me up to say, "there's no hot water".  WTH?!?  So at 5:30am I trudged down to the crawl space again.  No error codes present.  So I changed the mode to "hybrid" to enable the electric heat.  As soon as I hit enter, you can immediately hear the electric units turn on and hum.  And the energy monitor verified that the electric heating was on with an instant 4.5 kW bump in usage.  This got me annoyed...why was the heat pump not turning on???  I closed up the crawl space and checked the temperature and even after the crawl space door was open when I was checking the water heater, the temperature still registered 63F..no where near the 45F limit.  

So I broke down and called GE again to get my unit serviced.  After the troubleshooting guy argued with me about the crawl space temperature (I monitor it...trust me, I know it stays between 60-65 all year round...coldest ever was 58F), I got an appointment with a stern warning that if they don't find anything wrong with the unit, they'll charge me.  Since then I got a call from one of the service guys who I talked through what I saw (very nice gentlemen) and they suspect it's the control board.  So that's been ordered...and actually its on back-order...with a tentative appointment to replace it on the 20th.  I'm really hoping that'll fix it. Luckily, this is all no-cost to me since it's well within its 10-year warranty.  

Today's energy usage on TED.  Maybe that step around 5-6am is for the water heater?  After 7am is the dryer.  At ~8pm (19:00) the previous day you can see the water heater come on for the kiddo bath-time usage

This AM, I did try to check to see if the electric water heating was on, but I can't see it on the graphing which is odd  (maybe it is hidden in there around that 4.5-5KW area before 7am?).  Granted I didn't get the opportunity to go to the crawl space and check.  There was plenty of hot water this AM which was nice given that it was a frosty 11F outside (20F colder than yesterday).  

Anyway, we'll see if and how this gets resolved. It's a little annoying that this is happening to a fairly new unit.   

FeBRRRuary Bill...

Hi all.  Wow..I gotta say sometimes is takes FOREVER for Duke Energy to get the dang bill out.  For the longest time I've known how much I owe...but they had not produced a bill to show consumption.

Overall between Jan and Feb it was COLD.  A lot colder than I can remember. You'll see below that the HDDs were 1.5x what was last year and 2012.  Yikes!  And the bill reflects it too.  Also note that Duke Energy raise their rates late last year\ too.

Regardless...below are the results:

January 3rd - February 4th, 2013 Bill
Total consumption:  1,050 kWh
Days in billing cycle = 32
Average Daily Consumption = 32.81 kWh/day
Degree days = 606
Consumption per HDD = 1.73 kWh/HDD
Bill = $104.62

January 1st - February 1st, 2014 Bill
Total consumption:  1,438 kWh
Total Solar Generated:  135 kWh (TED5000)
Total Solar back to grid:  29 kWh
Net Consumption:  1,409 kWh
Days in billing cycle = 31
Average Daily Consumption = 45.45 kWh/day (38.52% increase)
Degree days = 906 (149% increase)
Consumption per HDD = 1.56 kWh/HDD (10.24% decrease)
Bill = $145.16

So, while overall we had a huge increase in average daily energy consumption (~39%) compared to last year, factoring in the significantly bitter cold temperatures shows we had an overall 10% reduction in energy usage.

	PVWatts	SolarEye	Expected	Actual
	Generation	DeRate	Generation	Generation
Month	kWh/mo	%	kWh/mo	kWh/mo	Notes
1	223	52%	116.0	135	TED5000 estimate
2	221	72%	159.1	135	TED5000 estimate
3	282	77%	217.1
4	299	83%	248.2
5	293	83%	243.2
6	277	82%	227.1
7	273	82%	223.9
8	278	82%	228.0
9	254	82%	208.3
10	270	75%	202.5
11	220	66%	145.2	96.21	Energized Nov 7.  Fully Online Nov 11.
12	205	47%	96.4	99.37
Total	3095	74.8%	2315

Comparing the solar generation to what was expected shows actual generation at 135 kWh while the estimated generation was listed as 116 kWh.  So that's good.  However, in February it looks like I produced less power than what was predicted.  For a combo of Jan&Feb, I produced 270 kWh while it predicted 275 kWh.  A 1.9% error?  I'm OK with that...

FYI, I got January's data from my TED5000 as my Tigo system is not generating data.  The Tigo unit says "No Gateway Detected!".  The contractor will check out the gateway today to figure out what is going on.  Luckily, its not inhibiting me from producing power.

BTW...Tigo makes you PAY to view your own generated data after an apparent "honeymoon" period.   This is very annoying as the Tigo website is very sly and not straightforward that a normal homeowner would have to pay.  It reads as if only large scale systems need to pay since they would need the advanced features.  It's not expensive ($5/year), but it pissed me off regardless.  Also the contractor did not tell me of this either which is doubly annoying.

December Bill, No November?, Overall: Still doing OK

Happy Holidays!  Merry Christmas!  Happy Hanukkah!  

(Insert any other holiday you wish to celebrate)

My daughter wonders what Santa is going to bring her for Christmas...

If you've been keeping track, you may be saying..."uhh December?  What happened to November?"  Well...for some reason Duke Energy did not send me a bill.  And I cannot find my November information online except for what Duke wants to bill me.  It's as if November never existed.  Unfortunately, Duke Energy would not take the actual dollar value of the bill and make that disappear too.  In any event in the lack of actual data, I'll post what my TED5000 unit says I did.  So...without further ado...below my November and December usage data.

November 2012  (Oct 2 - Nov 1)

Energy Consumed = 509 kWh

Billing Days = 30

Average Daily Usage = 16.97 kWh/day  (Ranks as #5 best month ever) 

Heating/Cooling Degree Days = 217

Weather Normalized Usage = 2.35 kWh/HD

Bill =$58.14

November 2013  (Oct 2 - Nov 2)  <--TED5000 setup to always be 2nd to 2nd
Energy Consumed = 651 kWh
Billing Days = 31
Average Daily Usage = 21.0 kWh/day  (24% increase in usage)
Heating/Cooling Degree Days = 191 (minus 15 days where there were <5 CDD/HDD)
Weather Normalized Usage = 1.76 kWh/HD
Bill =$64.02 (from Duke Energy.  TED Estimate = $78.19).

Based on the Bill amount, I'm guessing TED was WAY off.  At $0.11/kWh, my usage should be in the neighborhood of 560 kWh comparing to 2012.  That's a 20% error.  If you compare October's Bill, TED says I used 746 kWh while my Bill said I used 595 kWh which adjusts up to 664 kWh adjusting for the bill having 28 days and TED having 31 days.  So TED is about 15-20% off on those two months.

December 2012  (Nov 1- Dec 3)

Energy Consumed = 970 kWh

Billing Days = 32

Average Daily Usage = 30.31 kWh/day

Heating/Cooling Degree Days = 533

Weather Normalized Usage = 1.82 kWh/HD

Bill =$98.52

December 2013  (Oct 28 - Dec 1)  <-- Back to Duke Energy Billing Cycle 
Energy Consumed = 951 kWh
Energy Produced = 45 kWh  <--Panels energized midday 11/4, but not producing fully until midday 11/11.
Net Energy Consumed = 906 kWh
Billing Days = 34
Average Daily Usage = 26.65 kWh/day  (12.1% reduction from 2012)
Heating/Cooling Degree Days = 530
Weather Normalized Usage = 1.71 kWh/HD
Bill =$96.66

The good news here is that without factoring in the solar panels, I used less energy in 2013 than I did in 2012.  And that's with roughly the same Heating Degree Days.   Including the energy I generated, easily puts me at well below my 2012 usage by ~12%.   So far this month, according to TED, I'm on a similar pace to be just right around my 2012 consumption without the solar panels.  Apparently, the weather has been similar to last year also.  Through yesterday, the preliminary weather data is showing we've used 310 HDDs or 17.22 HD/day.  Extrapolating to 32 days, we're on pace for 551 HDDs compared to 533 in 2012.    

Too much excitement not to share...

Screenshot from my TED5000

OK...so this week I received my extra TED5000 MTU and clamps and installed them so I can finally see what I'm producing.  It took me a bit to figure out how to get it setup appropriately though.  Once I installed the unit and checked with the software, all my readings went negative (it was 8pm at night...no sunshine). I double checked my installation and it was all appropriate.  Then I read in the forums, that I needed to removed and flip the clamps on the 'whole house' wires and that did the trick.  Once I did that then the readings were all correct.  Then, it was cloudy.  Dang!  Well, today the sun is shining brightly and I'm finally getting to see my system producing power (I knew it was, but now I can see it remotely).  Yes...I am a nerd.

From the screenshot above (11am EST) my system was producing 1.702kW while peak production is 1.962kW while I was only using about 100W, so I'm sending power to the grid, baby!  

Sometime today I should get my login information for TIGO and I'll post on that.  I'll save that saga for another post, but long story short, there was a communication error from 2 of my panels (~660W NOT producing) and Greenspring energy had to send out a technician to fix it (all panels are now producing power).  With that fixed, TIGO can communicate and I'll be able to view the real time info on each panel.  

December 2012 Energy Results

(I felt like the blog posting was boring so I tossed in a pic to liven it up.  Here my recent TED5000 Monitored Usage)

Hello Readers-

I hope y'all aren't still not choking down thanksgiving turkey.   Not me...but my dog is eating like a King.  Although I still think there's some gravy left in the fridge.  And let me tell you....Gravy tots....MMMmmmmmm....just saying...try it.

Back to business...I got my latest Duke Energy Bill in and the results are posted below.  It's another year of savings which is good! 

To the numbers...

December 2011 Bill
Total Energy Usage:  963 kWh
Days:  30
Average Daily Usage:  32.10 kWh/day
Billed Amount:  $92.00

December 2012 Bill (Nov 1 - Dec 3)
Total Energy Usage:  970 kWh
Days:  32
Average Daily Usage:  30.31 kWh/day (5.57% reduction from 2011)
Billed Amount:  $98.52
Absolute Savings versus 2011:  - $6.52 (you can easily see the rake hike:  7 kWh total difference is not at $0.93/kWh)
Rate Adjusted Savings versus 2011 @ 0.1056/kWh):  $10.84 (lower winter rates now).

Overall, there has been a savings, albiet small.  One thing to note is the totally different temepratures between 2011 and 2012.  It was definitely colder this year than last.  To address this I looked up the heating degree days (HDD) for 2011 versus 2012.   I used NOAA monthly climate data for Charlotte, NC posted here.

For the same time period (Nov 1 - Dec 3) in 2011, we had 446 HDDs.  This year we had 533 HDDs which is a 87 HDD increase.  To put this into perspective, let's compare the energy usage to the HDD.

For 2011: 
Energy Usage = 32.10 kWh/day
HDDs = 446
No. of Days = 30
Heating degrees (HD) = 14.87
Energy Usage per HD =   2.16 kWh/HD

For 2012: 
Energy Usage = 30.31 kWh/day
HDDs = 533
No. of Days = 32
Heating degrees (HD) = 16.66
Energy Usage per HD =   1.82 kWh/HD  (15.7% reduction)

Overall, the climate adjusted energy reduction is around 15.7%.  This isn't uber-accurate given that I'd need to subtract out non-temperature related energy usage to get a more accurate representation...but I don't have that data.  Thus, I've made the assumption that my lights/TV/cooking/etc usage has not significantly changed since 2011. 

September Duke Energy Bill

Yes folks, yet another month has passed and I was waiting at the mailbox eager with anticipation...for a bill.  This month's electric bill came in and showed continued fantastic results:

Electricity Usage:  941 kWh
Days:  31
Avg Usage:  30.3 kWh/day
Comparing versus 2010:  37% savings (aka reduction in energy usage)
Comparing versus townhome of less than half this houses area (2009):  6% higher.

I'm thrilled.  It appears that we've had a consistent ~40% reduciton in energy usage.  And, I'm using about the same amount of total energy as if I were still in my former townhome.  Just sweet!

I would expect the savinsg to be more if I can figure out where the humidity is coming from in my crawl space.  I have the dehumidifier running 6 hrs on/6 hrs off.  During that time, the humidity drops to 45% when on...then raises to about 55-60% when off.  I'm not sure but it might be hitting the 45% humidity mark and turning off.  I need to check the manual to figure this out.  UPDATE:  Yes, I verified this and once it hits around 45% (the setting on the unit is 50%), it turns off....and then restarts again when the humidity increases. 

UPDATE on TED:  Energy Inc (the MFRs of the TED unit) sent me a new display.  Well, that one didn't work...it wouldn't connect to my gateway.  After discussions with tech support, apparently they sent me the wrong model (there is a series 21 and a series 20...I have a series 20).  That should arrive today.  It'll be nice to have the ole' TED display around again...

UPDATE 2:  FYI, my TED unit had 993 kWh for the month vs the 941 for Duke Energy.  That's a ~5% error difference.  I think the # of days was the same...but I think TED is setup to record from the 2nd to the 2nd, while Duke Energy this month went from the 6th to the 6th. 

UPDATE 3:  Well, the TED display arrived and this time it showed it was picking up a wireless signal, but again, it was not showing the data.  Hrmmph!  We'll see Tech support says this time.  I have a feeling it's a firmware issue.

UPDATE 4:  FYI...I have no idea why my August post is in front of my September post.  Maybe once I update this post it'll move it ahead...maybe...I hope... 

UPDATE 5:  I finally fixed that August post...someone is double-posted...so I just deleted it.  So very odd...